


Birds of a Feather

by iopeneditbeforechristmas



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, levihan week 2015 day 3, prompt: feathers/wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 06:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4656456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iopeneditbeforechristmas/pseuds/iopeneditbeforechristmas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There isn’t a large funeral; just friends, no family. There’s none left. Only a small collection of soldiers, back from various corners of the undiscovered world. They dig out their old green cloaks for the occasion. Just as Hange was in life, so her funeral is in her death; unconventional and strange. They hold it by a river they’ve found; in this they place the coffin, so that it’s borne away on a current until it’s over the horizon and out of sight. At this point the mourners leave, to return to wherever it is they’re discovering now.</p><p>Two birds meet on a branch and watch them go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birds of a Feather

“Captain! Captain!”

When Levi dies, it’s not how he thought he would go. In his mind, it’s always been a muted affair, like every other time he’s seen a soldier fall. Slammed against a tree, spine snapped, gasping for breaths that won’t come; sliding down a Titan’s gullet, past even screaming; cleaved in two by teeth too sharp and too strong to fight. Something like that. That’s how it’s always been; there isn’t time for slow, sorrowful deaths in the Survey Corps. Soldiers die, rookies and veterans alike, and there’s no time for their friends to make a fanfare out of it until they’re safe behind the Walls.

Except now he’s lying down, propped up against an old wall and trying to fight the haze that’s threatening to take him every moment he breathes. There are faces swimming in front of him, contorted in worry, anger, grief. Every so often they’ll come into focus, sharpening at expense of the background behind them.

“Captain Levi!” He hears Jaeger say, even though it’s hard to make out anything through the pounding in his ears. “Just...keep it together, okay? There’s medics coming, they’ll sort you out.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Jaeger, I’m missing my two right limbs, and have been for quite a while considering their importance.”

Jaeger doesn’t say anything, but Levi can see his face fall, and momentarily regrets being so sharp with the boy. Despite all that’s been thrust on his shoulders, he’s only a child. He’s been through too much to retain the fresh-faced naïveté that still lets him believe there’s hope for Levi. But maybe there are some things that’ll never change, and maybe Eren Jaeger will never lose the hope that’s been a part of him for so long. There were moments, of course, where the light in his eyes dimmed, and it looked like even humanity’s last hope would become just another dull, faceless soldier, but the fervour returned to his voice and Eren came back to the world.

Levi was glad. He’s glad now, too, that Eren’s still the same kid he used to be. It’s something comforting, because even his surroundings are starkly different and hold no steadying familiarity to soothe his passing. They’re in Shiganshina; they should be celebrating. The breach in Wall Maria has been closed, humanity has triumphed, and Levi Ackerman is dying. He’s not ashamed to admit that he’s bitter about the whole thing.

The medics arrive, and the small crowd gathered in front of him parts to let them through. Ackerman - the other one - takes Jaeger’s hand. It takes a lot of fussing, and they bandage his arms anyway, but eventually they prescribe him a lost cause. He asks them to leave.

And then she turns up, face covered in blood and sweat and Titan juice and the most welcome thing he’s seen in his life.

“So you’re dying?” Hange says. It isn’t really a question.

“Yeah.”

“Well look at the positives; you could be covered in shit. It’s quite a clean way to go, all things considered.”

“Yeah,” Levi gasps. It’s not as flat as the previous one. There’s colour there, in this one-syllable method of agreeing with the hypothesis Hange has put forward. He’s glad of that. He wouldn’t want to go without her knowing he didn’t want to go at all. He’s glad she’s here, too, and acting like she normally does. She isn’t make any fanfare or infecting his death with any unnecessary sadness. He’s glad about that as well. Really, there are far more things Levi’s glad about when he dies than he ever thought there’d be.

* * *

 

When Hange dies, it’s different. There’s no drama, no emotion. Really, it’s a surprisingly muted affair, given that she goes in her sleep some three years after Levi passed on the battlefield. Despite the obvious cause for celebration, the Survey Corps was a muted and much-depleted party for a while after Wall Maria was reclaimed. They dispatched the Titans that remained in the interior with cool efficiency. They planned the resettlement mission down to details that really shouldn’t have existed. They carried it out in a similar fashion to the clean-ups that had taken place beforehand. Brutal, cold logic reigned; while humanity celebrated, the Survey Corps did not.

That was not to say they didn’t welcome the peace that they found afterwards, but it was always hard to properly take pleasure in it when there were so many others who deserved to just as much, who you could never forget but never get back. And besides, there’s nothing there to  _do._

Every day since she’s spent in a similar fashion to the one before; convene with the younger veterans helping her over breakfast, before continuing to rack her brains for any ideas to improve their resettlement project for the rest of the day; if plans are thought of, brainstorm ideas to put them in motion; once this has been brainstormed, oversee the putting in motion of said plans. Hange’s meant to be retired, but really she’s working harder than ever. They all are, and there’s no hiding the fact that it’s compensating for something.

Hange’s not entirely sure whether the emptiness in her life is because of a lost vocation or lost comrades. Possible both; they’re not either of them exclusive, after all. A large part of it has to be because there are no longer Titans to experiment on; there were plenty captured during the clean-up stages of their plans, but once people actually started living in the new interior public sentiment against them grew so strong that Hange lost them all. New projects were needed after this, so now she spends her days pacing her room and trying to think of them. They rarely come; in the last few months her brain has been so stagnant she’s wanted to scream. And has, on several occasions.

If she’s honest with herself, there’s no excuse for her to feel this bored. Levi’s squad repeatedly begs her to come exploring with them outside the walls, every time they return. Hange never understands why she refuses their offer every time, quells the curiosity bubbling up inside her. It just feels like now is not the time to be exploring there. Like there’s something - or someone - she’s waiting for.

And so Hange whiles away her days drinking copious amounts of tea and contemplating several mental breakdowns. It’s not that far from her previous occupation. She spends her last day alive the exact same way.

* * *

 

There isn’t a large funeral; just friends, no family. There’s none left. Only a small collection of soldiers, back from various corners of the undiscovered world. They dig out their old green cloaks for the occasion. Just as Hange was in life, so her funeral is in her death; unconventional and strange. They hold it by a river they’ve found; in this they place the coffin, so that it’s borne away on a current until it’s over the horizon and out of the sight. At this point the mourners leave, to return to wherever it is they’re discovering now.

Two birds meet on a branch and watch them go. One has smooth, glossy black feathers; the other is covered in messy tufts of brown. They spend a moment just looking at each other, before they fly off into the great unknown, together.


End file.
